Five tips for controlling insider threats during the work-from-home era

The internet was rocked by a very public breach on Twitter during July in which dozens of celebrity accounts were compromised. The hacked accounts announced all at once that they’d double “donations” made to their personal bitcoin account, which in reality was a cryptocurrency scheme. As more details emerged, we learned that the cybercriminals behind the attack used a variety of tactics to exploit insiders, obtaining access to user credentials within Twitter’s network.

Unfortunately, what happened to Twitter can happen to anyone. The highly publicized Twitter attack played out on the big stage in the public eye, but insiders cause damage every day. In fact, the 2020 Ponemon Cost of Insider Threats Report found that the frequency of insider threats increased by 47 percent over the last year. Every time an employee leaves a company, employers are at risk of losing critical data and intellectual property. This potentially damaging loss can happen very quickly, and in most cases does its work undetected.